Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1806: Rich but Not Enough

"This arm was found on the right arm of one of the bodies. When the tomb was opened, it was the first thing everyone saw because of its brilliant colors, mysterious patterns and magical meaning. It immediately attracted everyone's attention."

"Look, this is what it looked like when it was just unearthed."

Although the corpse was wearing a lot of clothes, the colors were relatively simple, except for the brocade arm guard on the right arm, which was woven with very bright white, red, yellow and green colors on a blue background to create a typical Han-style pattern. Although it was still wrapped, Zhou Zhi could already see cloud patterns, bird and animal patterns, evil-repelling patterns, and red and white circular patterns representing the sun and the moon. The connotations in this small space were very rich.

"This is what the arm guard looks like when it's unfolded." Director Jiang switched to another slide.

This photo is very clear. Director Jiang introduced: "The brocade harmoniously brings together star patterns, cloud patterns that symbolize auspiciousness, and auspicious animal patterns such as the Vermilion Bird, cranes, lions and tigers, and evil-repelling patterns. The area is not large, 18.5 cm long and 12.5 cm wide."

"Are there any data on the warp and weft density and the pattern cycle width?" Master Yang asked.

"Yes. The warp density is 2200 per 240 centimeters, the weft density is 7.4 per centimeters, and the loop width is centimeters."

"Then this is the same as the data of the Han Dynasty official brocade in Shuzhong. Did this brocade come from our Shuzhong?"

"This possibility is very high, but it still needs further research." Dean Jiang said: "The importance of this arm guard lies in the text and pattern, and secondly, it corresponds to the painting 'Hanwu Shooting a Dragon'. It can solve the last doubts about 'Hanwu Shooting a Dragon'. Now everyone believes that 'Hanwu Shooting a Dragon' is a Song Dynasty copy of Zhang Sengyou's original work."

"Does this brocade have a border on the right side?" asked Master Yang.

The pattern of the brocade starts from the right side, which is a pair of male and female rare birds. The male bird stands at the bottom of the cloud pattern, with its head held high. On its head is the Chinese character "五", and on the left cloud pattern on its chest hangs a dogwood pattern. The female bird stands on the cloud pattern with her head down and faces the male bird. Above its neck is a white circular pattern symbolizing "Taiyin", on its back is a "星" character, and below its tail is a dogwood pattern.

The character "出" is separated from the character "星" by a dogwood pattern.

The word "Dong" is above the gap between the two cloud patterns.

At the lower left of the word "East", above a cloud pattern, is a red circular pattern symbolizing the "sun".

On the lower left side of the "sun" is an inverted cloud pattern. In the recessed part of the cloud pattern, there is a one-horned auspicious beast with its mouth open and tongue sticking out, head held high and howling. Its tail is drooping and there is a wing on its back, which may be a "ward off evil spirits". Above the horn of the beast, at the top of the cloud pattern is a "square" character.

The character "利" is located on the upper left of the character "方" across a cloud.

On the left side of the cloud pattern below the word "利" is a tiger-shaped animal with vertical stripes and wide-open eyes. Its right foot is on the cloud pattern and it is walking to the right. Its tail is tall and strong. On the right side of its tail is the word "中" and on the left side is the word "国". The edge of the brocade is the part without patterns. This arm guard is made by cutting the brocade, inlaying it with a cloth edge, and then adding six thin strips to the cloth edge.

When cutting the brocade, the tailors made the best use of it, even the edges without patterns were used, which shows how much importance the wealthy people of Jingjue Kingdom attached to Han brocade.

Zhou Zhi even had a strange feeling. The fact that the rich man wanted to be buried with the arm guard when he died showed how much he valued the arm guard. The Chinese characters on the Han brocade might be a kind of blind "cultural worship" for the rich man. He did not understand the meaning behind the words, but just felt that wearing this brocade with Chinese characters was extremely classy, ​​just like many foreigners in later generations liked to tattoo some nonsense Chinese words on their bodies.

As for the deeper meanings such as five stars rising from the East bringing great benefits to China and defeating the barbarians, and five-colored silk threads matching the five stars, the Jingjue people should not be able to understand them.

"Indeed, this wealthy man in Jingjue attached great importance to this brocade, because we also found the leftmost part of this brocade in the tomb. The pattern on it is integrated with the arm guard, but there are only three words on it - 'Suppress the Southern Qiang'."

"In fact, the whole picture of this tapestry should be 'Five stars rise in the east, which will benefit China in defeating the southern Qiang'?"

"Yes, this piece of 'Fighting the Southern Qiang' brocade is a part cut from the same brocade as the 'Five Stars' brocade. We used the pattern splicing analysis of your oracle laboratory to show that the woven text is actually a continuous 'Five Stars Rising from the East, Benefiting China to Fight the Southern Qiang'."

"This foreigner is really thrifty." Master Yang said with a smile: "If it were me, I would definitely cut off the edges and keep the essence to make this arm."

"Master Yang, you may have misunderstood this Jingjue foreigner." Zhou Zhi smiled and said, "In the Han Dynasty, the department that provided brocade for the royal government was called the 'Weaving Room'. This kind of brocade with astrological characters was only managed by the royal historians. Moreover, the dynasty had absolute authority and interpretation rights over the calendar and celestial phenomena. Anyone who privately discussed and studied 'astronomical calendar' would be punished with capital punishment. Therefore, the weaving unit that could use these astrological words and dared to use them as a lucky phrase on the brocade could only have come from the Weaving Room and then been awarded to the Jingjue Kingdom by the royal family."

"Elbow is right. The emergence of this brocade text is undoubtedly a testimony to the fact that the Han and Jin dynasties combined astronomical divination with the ambition of "conquering the southern Qiang" in order to pray for the success of the campaign in politics and military affairs, in order to seek auspicious signs."

"Have there been similar texts on other brocades?" Zhou Zhi really didn't know much about this aspect.

"Yes, and they are especially numerous in Loulan and Jingjue. For example, Loulan has the brocade with the inscription 'May you prolong your life and prosper your descendants', the brocade with the inscription 'May the king and the princes live together for a thousand years and may their descendants flourish', and the brocade with the longest inscription is the brocade with the inscription 'May the great prosperity of China and the four barbarians be subdued and the southern Qiang be punished, and may the people be at peace and the sky be boundless'. These should all have been given by the Han government at that time to the countries in the Western Regions."

"So this is a status symbol?"

"If he really had status, he wouldn't be so stingy." Zhou Zhi said with a smile, "It was probably a gift from the Han royal family to the King of Jingjue. I don't know how this rich man got this piece of brocade, but he was still timid when making the armband. He didn't even want to cut the edges without patterns. He looks like a nouveau riche who has money but not much background."

"Hahahaha... this is just groundless speculation." Although Jiang Tianxi blamed Zhou Zhi, he couldn't help laughing. He was a scholar and couldn't be as imaginative as Zhou Zhi. He couldn't think of any other possibility to refute his ridiculous conclusion.

"We have always thought that the arm used by Emperor Wu in the painting 'Han Wu Shooting a Dragon' was either a part of leather armor to prevent the bowstring from scratching his hand, or it was invented by the author..." Zhou Zhi returned his gaze to the painting. "No wonder we don't see it in Chinese figure paintings. It turns out that this is something that was brought over from a foreign land."